As director of amateur scouting for the Boston Red Sox, Jake Bruml ’15 is nomadic most of the year, his weekday afternoons an endless parade of baseball at different schools in different states.
It’s a gig that’s taken him to baseball hotbeds in California and Texas as often as it’s taken him to towns in Alabama and Oklahoma that have one stoplight and a can’t-miss prospect everyone there knows by name.
In April, Bruml, a San Mateo native, returned “home” to scout in Southern California, where he collected 203 hits and 23 pitching wins as a Sagehen.
“Pomona College is an incredible place,” he says. “I made connections that’ll last a lifetime.”
Since hiring the Pomona alumnus as a pro scouting intern ahead of the 2019 season, Red Sox officials have placed a premium on Bruml’s work ethic. As a result, one of Pomona’s own is a key decision-maker within a storied Major League Baseball franchise.
“Pomona challenged me in a way I’ve never been challenged before,” he says. “Between balancing the rigorous courseload and lab work that being a STEM major included, in addition to being an athlete, I really had to navigate things strategically.
“I didn’t know it at the time, but that set me up for future success in any role.”
At least three players from the Sagehens’ 2013 baseball team have held front office positions in Major League Baseball—Bruml (Red Sox), Guy Stevens ’13 (Kansas City Royals) and Simon Rosenbaum ’16 (Tampa Bay Rays).
Good work across the past six seasons has earned Bruml promotions to increasingly important positions, including his current role as director of amateur scouting.
As he applies his philosophy to a 126-year-old franchise with nine World Series titles, he’s using principles he picked up at Pomona to weigh million-dollar decisions.
As a chemistry major, Bruml followed procedures to create compounds or complete experiments. Depending on the results, he would determine how to improve either the procedure or the compound itself to generate a better outcome.
“I’ve been able to create a similar process that can be applied to evaluating players, where every player is held to the same evaluation process and scrutiny,” he says. “This allows me to home in on the questions that need answering when watching them play.”
Bruml’s holistic approach to scouting, shaped largely at Pomona, is what Red Sox fans hope will bring the next great homegrown star to Beantown.